No place for old wise people in Britain's new knowledge economy

People with too much wisdom and experience could find themselves redundant in Digital Britain's new knowledge economy.

"In the Internet driven economy, where wisdom is just a mouse click away, there's little demand for people who had to spend their whole lives learning by experience," said Gino Spencer, chief evangelist of Zeitgeist Social Media.

The traditional model of obtaining wisdom was a three stage largely manual process that involved huge investment of time and energy. It involved book reading, followed by word of mouth references, recommendations from friends and counsel with a bloke in the pub who knows everything. But the really crazy bit came next, when this heresay data was cross referenced with a period of personal experience.

'What a palava,' says Spencer. 'These days, you can consult your iPad and get instant wisdom.'

In the old days, for example, a football fan might spend days playing football, learning his limitations, and looking forward to visiting Tottenham Hotspurs' ground to see how Martin Peters and Steve Perryman do it. These days, with the iPad, you can go online and read the words of football experts like Matthew Norman and become instantly enlightened. 'Norman's knowledge of football goes back to when it was invented by Nick Hornby,' says Spencer.

An old fashioned visit to White Hart Lane might have shocked the layman, as what appeared to be hundreds of white thuggish looking men with THFC tattooed on their hands lay in wait for away fans. A brief consultation with online football know it all Matthew Norman gives a much more up to date account, with Tottenham Hotspur described as big, inclusive, lovable Jewish family, which always offers a warm welcome to strangers.

Old school football fans might base their expertise on their own experiences of playing the game. This experience might tell them that the spine of a team is built around a goalie, centre back, central midfielder and striker. But Matthew Norman's instant Internet wisdom tells online football expert differently. In one piece he wrote for the Evening Standard, Norman enlightened hundreds of thousands of readers, with the words that Brian Clough built a team around peripheral left winger John Robertson.

'In the old days, you built any team of humans around youth and experience,' concludes Spencer. 'In the knowledge economy, there's only room for youth.'